'Light a candle,' the wizard's voice said. The lambency of his stare faded and the room was pitch-dark. On the bed, something was groaning.
'I -I can't see, Golophin,' Isolla whispered.
'Forgive me.' A fluttering wick of werelight appeared near the ceiling. Isolla reached for the tinderbox, and retrieved a candle from the floor. The backs of her hands, her clothing, were covered in a delicate layer of white ash. She struck flint and steel, caught the spark in the ball of tinder, and fed it to the candle wick. A more human radiance replaced the were-light.
Golophin laboured to his feet, beating the ash from his robes. When he turned to her Isolla caught her breath in shock. 'My God, Golophin, your face!'
One side of the old wizard's countenance had been transformed into a tormented mass of scar tissue, like that of a burn long healed. He nodded. 'The Dweomer always exacts a payment, especially when one is in a hurry. Ah, child, I am so sorry. You should not have been here for this. I thought that I alone would suffice.'
'What do you mean?'
He came forward and stroked her cheek gently, the strange tautness there. 'It took you too,' he said simply.
She felt her skin. It was ridged and almost numb in a line running from the corner of her eye to her jaw. Something in her stomach pitched headlong, but she spoke without a quaver. 'It's no matter. How is he?'
They turned to the bed, holding the candle over the blasted coverlet, the ash-strewn and smoking mattress. Hawkwood's ragged, scorched clothes had disappeared. He lay naked on the bed breathing deeply. His beard had gone, and the hair on his scalp was no more than a dark stubble, but there was not a mark on his body. Golophin felt his forehead. 'He'll sleep for a few hours, and when he wakes, he'll be as hale as ever he was. Hebrion has need of him yet.
'Stay here with him, my dear. I must go and take the temperature of the city, and there are one or two errands to be run also.' He looked closely at Isolla, as though deliberating whether to tell her something, then turned away with a passable pretence at briskness. ‘I may be gone some time. Watch over our patient.'
'As I once watched over Abeleyn?' The grief was raw in her voice. She remembered another evening, a different man
restored by Golophin's power. But there had been hope back then.
Golophin left without replying.
Eight
A procession of dreams, all brightly lit and perfectly coherent, travelled along the trackways of Hawkwood's mind. Like paper lanterns set free to soar, they finally burned themselves up and came drifting sadly back down in ash and smoke.
He saw the old Osprey blazing in the night, sails of flame twisting and billowing from her decks. At her rail stood King Abeleyn, and beside him, Murad. Murad was laughing.
He watched as, like a succession of brilliantly wrought jewels, a hundred ports and cities of the world winked past. And with them were faces. Billerand, Julius Albak, Haukal, his long-forgotten wife Estrella. Murad. Bardolin. These last two were linked, somehow, in his mind. There was something they shared which he could not fathom. Murad was dead now - even in the dream Hawkwood knew this, and was glad.
At the last there came a red-haired woman with a scar on her cheek who pillowed him on her breast. He knew her. As he studied her face the dreams faded, and the fear. He felt as though he had made landfall after the longest of voyages, and he smiled.
'You're awake!'
'And alive. How in the world—' and he saw her face clearly now, the line of ridged tissue down one side, like the trail of a sculptor's fingers in damp clay.
Her own fingers flew to it at once, covering it. Then she dropped her hand deliberately, stern as the Queen she was. She had been weeping.
The room was gloomy and cold in the pre-dawn greyness. A fire in the hearth had sunk to smoking embers. How long had he been here? What had been happening? There was no pain. His life's slate had been wiped clean.
'Golophin saved you, with the Dweomer. But there was a price. He is far worse than I. It is not important. You are alive. He will be here soon.'
Isolla rose from the bedside, his eyes following her every move with a baffled, helpless pain. He ran a hand over his own features and was astounded.
'My beard!'
'It'll grow back. You look younger without it. There are clothes by the side of the bed. They should fit. Come into the antechamber when you are ready. Golophin wants to talk to us.' She left, walking stiffly in a simple and unadorned court gown.
Hawkwood threw aside the covers and studied his body. Not a mark. Even his old scars of twenty years had disappeared. He was as hairless as a babe.
Feeling absurdly embarrassed, he pulled on the clothing which had been left out for him. He was parched, and drained at a gulp the silver jug of springwater sitting beside them. He felt as though he must crack every joint in his body to bend it back into shape, and spent minutes stretching and bending, getting the blood flowing again. He was alive. He was whole. It was not a miracle, but it seemed more than miraculous to him. Despite all that he had seen of the workings of magic through the years, certain aspects of it never failed to stun him. It was one thing to call up a storm - it was the kind of thing he expected a wizard to do. But to mould his own flesh like this, to smooth out the burns and heal his cracked, smoke-choked lungs - that was truly awe-inspiring.
What price had been paid for the gift of this life? That lady on the other side of the door. She had paid for his scars with her own. She, Hebrion's Queen.
When he stepped through the doorway his face was as sombre as that of a mourner. In his life he had not made a habit of frequenting the bedchambers of royalty and he was at a loss as to whether he should bow, sit down or remain standing. Isolla was watching him, drinking a glass of wine. The antechamber was small, octagonal, but high-ceilinged. A fire of blue-spitting sea coal burned in the hearth and there was a pretty tumble of women's things here and there on the chairs, a full decanter on the table, ruby and shining in the firelight, beeswax candles burning in sconces in the walls, their fine scent mingling with Isolla's perfume. Heavy curtains were drawn across the single window, so that it might have been the middle of the night, but Hawkwood's internal clock knew that dawn had come and gone, and the sun was rising up the sky now.
'There is no formality here, Captain. Help yourself to some wine. You look as though you had seen a - a ghost.'
He did as he was bidden, unable to relax. He wanted to twitch aside the curtains and peer out to see what was in the morning sky.
'I have met you before, have I not?' she said stiffly.
'I have been at a levee or two over the years, lady. But a long time ago I met you on the North Road. Your horse had thrown a shoe.'
She coloured. 'I remember. I served you wine in Golophin's tower. Forgive me Captain, my wits are astray.'
Hawkwood bowed slightly. There was nothing more to be said. But Isolla was trying to say something. She stared into her wine and asked at last: 'How did he die? The King.'
Hawkwood swore silently. What could he possibly tell this woman that would make her sleep any easier at night? That her husband had been burned, ripped apart, drowned? She raised her head and saw what he would not say in his eyes.
'So it was bad, then.'
'It was bad,' he said heavily. 'But truly, lady, it did not last long, for any of them.' 'And my brother?'
Of course, she was Mark's sister. This woman was now one of the last survivors of two Royal lines - perhaps the last indeed.
'For him also it was quick,' he lied, staring her down, willing her to believe him. 'He died scant feet away from Abeleyn, the two on the same quarterdeck.' On my ship, he thought. Two kings and an admiral died there, but not I. And the shame seared his soul.